The Avalanche have taken a lot of penalties in 26 games — some were avoidable and some required restraint — but head coach Jared Bednar said the issue has been addressed.

Colorado is eighth in the NHL for penalties in minutes per game with 11, and face the Philadelphia Flyers who are just above them in the seventh spot on the list.

While the Avs have maintained a solid penalty kill, the Flyers have not had much success with the man-advantage as they are ranked 27th in the League. No matter, 5-on-5 is more ideal than a game full of special teams. 

The key, head coach Jared Bednar said, is for his players to be disciplined and not take unnecessary penalties. 

"It's laying the foundation of the way you want to defend. Often times when you're taking penalties it's because maybe you're not doing the early work to get back above pucks ... ," Bednar said. "I feel like as we get better — and sort of the fundamentals of our defensive play in all three zones — the less penalties we're going to take because we're a team that can skate, we shouldn't be reaching in taking a lot of stick penalties."

The Avs have a higher power-play percentage at home but the Flyers have a strong penalty kill at 85.9%. 

"We have a number of penalties that we can clean up automatically just by being disciplined," Bednar said. "But as we get better on the defensive side we should be taking less and less penalties."

Fredrik Olofsson was the only player to take a penalty in the loss to the Winnipeg Jets but Bednar said his team lacked intensity. It's imperative to find a balance between the two without being too soft or too unruly. 

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